Last week, while I was taking a break, Taiwan News sent around 6 Off the Beaten Path Destinations in Taiwan. These six places, whose comically awful and ignorant descriptions strongly suggest that the writer has never visited Taiwan, let alone any of these places, are....
- "Keelung Night Market" which does not exist. The market pictured is the famous Miaokou Night Market in Keelung. The blurb says that it requires a "significant metro ride" though the metro does not at present go to Keelung.
- Sun Moon Lake. With its "highly regarded amusement park that portrays the life of aboriginal Taiwanese tribes". Pardon me while I throw up in my mouth a little.
- Jiufen and Yehliu
- The Rainbow Village in Taichung
- Alishan.
- Green Island. "One of the smaller islands that make up the Taiwan archipelago, Green Island usually receives significantly less tourist attention than its neighbor Orchid Island." Reality is just the opposite: Green Island is an overdeveloped and touristy, while Orchid is more remote and less visited. Nor is Taiwan an archipelago.
But this got me thinking. What are 6 Off the Beaten Path Destinations in Taiwan I would recommend? Let's list a few that were not on the list I talked about this before...
1. Delai in Pingtung. Take the 24 out of Sandimen and then the Pingtung 31 to Delai. The local aboriginal community has been putting in eco-tourism programs and facilities. There's a campground and a park, and hikes and other activities are available. The website for the community effort is Makudu Coffee (makudu.blogspot.tw) and they are on Facebook. They offer food and nature tourism, camping and a B and B. I have many pictures of it in this post here.
2. Namaxia District (google maps). I've taken a couple of trips to the area, filled with aboriginal communities. Here's one. It is absolutely gorgeous. Put it on your list.
3. Beipu in Hsinchu (biked here). Beipu itself is an old community that has an Old Street and is quite pleasant, but the area around it is filled with small roads through lovely hills.
4. Chimei in Hualien (biked here). This little gem requires your own transportation, since there's no bus to the tiny hamlet. Chimei sits halfway through the stunning Hualien 64 between the Rift Valley and the Coast. There's a couple of homestays in the community, and the area is lovely. The homestays can organize hikes and other activities.
5. Yenshui and Budai districts in Tainan. Actually the area north of Tainan city is carpeted with old farmhouses and is quite interesting historically. Yenshui, sadly only known for the flood of foreigners who do the fireworks every year, is also a town with a fine Old Street and many old buildings. That side of it makes for a superb day trip from Tainan city.
6. Ruiho. I've never been there, but heard many good things about it, so that's why I am listing it. On my list of places I must go this year.
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2 comments:
Michael,
All wonderful suggestions.
The irony is that there is so much tourism potential in Taiwan that is effectively UNKNOWN and UNMARKETED to the outside world. It's crazy.
1. Of course my favorite example, as mentioned separately, is the astonishing surfing all along Taiwan's east and south-east coast. Ran into a serious Aussie surfer this weekend who was in Taiwan after a surf trek to the Maldives, and he was stunned: looking like a character out of "Point Break", his tone "How does noone know about this? It's awesome!"
As noted, the small Japanese social media Instagram video push to get the word out is having disproportionate and immediate effect. For all those Taiwan tourism people whining about a drop-off in cheap Chinese bus tours and despairing for Taiwan's tourism future, it's a shining example of the potential payoff of some decent, low cost but creative targeted marketing efforts in new source markets. (https://ja-jp.facebook.com/nagabayashitakashi/)
The snorkeling and scuba diving nearby is also exceptional. Plus there are endemic species of birds and butterflies all over the place, and sea turtles among the waves. Beautiful.
For the Taiwan history nerds in the crowd (I know you're out there - after all this is Turton's blog!), the surf spots in Hengchun are about 10 minutes from the shipwreck site of the Mudan Incident; the village where the Mudan Incident really kicked off is 15 minutes up the mountain in the tiny aboriginal town of Kutsu Kutsu (now Gaoshi / 高士) which features a tiny and pretty little multi-denomination Japanese shrine (高士神社) overlooking the Pacific Ocean from 800m elevation; and back down in the lower hillsides near Checheng is the Hakka town of Baoli (保力) with a memorial to the Mudan sailors as well as the hot springs destination of Sichongxi (四重溪).
Cont'd ...
... Cont'd
2. Qishan / Chishan (旗山)
Ostensibly in Kaohsiung, Qishan is about a 30 minute drive in the direction of the mountains, and features are beautifully preserved "Old Town" from the Japanese era including a butokuden (武徳殿) now used for small art exhibits; a pretty hillside park behind it which used to house the town shrine; the old school buildings, police and water admin buildings; the old train station (used to be a key stop on the sugar express serving the town's sugar refinery as well as its banana plantations); and an extensive, nicely preserved and remarkably active Old Street leading from the old train station to the shrine area, with great food stalls and banana snacks amid the affluent old town houses inscribed with the names of their original proprietors.
Qishan's colonial history, like many such old towns in south Taiwan, features a lot of doctors who then branched out from medical studies to the humanities and, later, show up frequently in south Taiwan politics.
3. Xinhua 新化 / 大內 & Tainan Waterworks
Similar to Qishan, in Tainan there is the Old Town of Xinhua / Sinhwa (新化) and the nearby attractions of the original Tainan Waterworks and the Danei artist village.
Xinhua's Old Town is pretty and also nicely preserved, with its Butokuden still used for community activities and a series of cute cafes and boutiques in the surrounding village. Also Xinhua is the hometown of some key early figures in the Taiwan literature and self-determination movements, I believe the key local guy is Yang Kui who is memorialized in the town.
Nearby, the Tainan Waterworks are amazing for anyone interested in colonial infrastructure: the extent, scale and near perfection of the Tainan Waterworks, including the huge walk-up hill-top pond with a staircase reminiscent of something out of Star Wars... Amazing to find such hidden gems.
The neighboring artist village of Danei (大內) is worth a brief stop with kids to run around the old Qing village buildings painted with high quality wall murals of Totoro and the like. Very cute. The coffee and dried mangos from the nearby Tainan "Mango Mountain" area are all worth trying. Wonderful stuff in a quiet backwater town in the south Taiwan countryside.
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